Actually, dogs and very few cats do understand pointing, but it is true that most animals don't, even chimpanzees.

This is most likely an adaptation that occurred over the millenia during their process of domestication so they could better understand information and orders given by humans. After all, back then, a dog you can't communicate with was useless as it will not hunt nor guard your property when you tell him

i think it might be something specifically bred into different types of dogs. hunting breeds seem to get the pointing concept faster than goofy breeds like pugs, but i've yet to find a dog that couldn't be taught to look in the direction a a pint rather than the hand.

Yeah my dog understands pointing.
She also sort of understands a few key words like "outside" or "water"
She might not understand them the way human do but she recognizes that when i say outside we're going outside and when i say water i'm going to put more water in her bowl. Pretty good sign of intelligence

just like kids. there's a huge potential there for intelligence, but if you don't work with them then they can be dump as rocks and just like kids there's a difference in potential between individuals. my beagle could recognize and understand about 100 words by the time she was a year old (wanted to make her a therapy dog but she didn't have the temperament) but my pug never got past 50. what surprised me is that the pug went deaf when she was 10, and within a month, she could understand hand signals for all the words she knew plus picked up a few extra that she never did when it was verbal.

That happens probably for the same reason dogs learn it better than cats.

Races such as pugs and others, are similar to cats in that they are household pets, for that reason they do not need much in the order of communication and as such are not as adapted as hunting and shepherd breeds that are used in more communication-dependent functions such as hunting, guarding, shepherding, chasing criminals, sniffing out drugs, etc.

yep. also explains why my pug begs at the dining room table while my beagle is content to lay down with in calling distance of the table and comes over when i call her to give her a treat. some behaviors are bred into them.

then again, i think cats aren't actually "pets" they're just wild animals that live indoors and are waiting for you to die so they can eat you.